<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

<title>matplotlib: python plotting &mdash; Matplotlib 1.2.0 documentation</title>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="_static/mpl.css" type="text/css" />

<link rel="stylesheet" href="_static/pygments.css" type="text/css" />

<script type="text/javascript">

var DOCUMENTATION_OPTIONS = {

URL_ROOT: '',

VERSION: '1.2.0',

COLLAPSE_INDEX: false,

FILE_SUFFIX: '.html',

HAS_SOURCE: true

};

</script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="_static/jquery.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="_static/underscore.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="_static/doctools.js"></script>

<link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml"

title="Search within Matplotlib 1.2.0 documentation"

href="_static/opensearch.xml"/>

<link rel="top" title="Matplotlib 1.2.0 documentation" href="#" />

</head>

<body>

<script type="text/javascript">

if ("matplotlib.sourceforge.net" == document.location.hostname ||

"matplotlib.sf.net" == document.location.hostname) {

var pkBaseURL = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://apps.sourceforge.net/piwik/matplotlib/" : "http://apps.sourceforge.net/piwik/matplotlib/");

document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + pkBaseURL + "piwik.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));

<script type="text/javascript">

if ("matplotlib.sourceforge.net" == document.location.hostname ||

"matplotlib.sf.net" == document.location.hostname) {

piwik_action_name = '';

piwik_idsite = 1;

piwik_url = pkBaseURL + "piwik.php";

piwik_log(piwik_action_name, piwik_idsite, piwik_url);

document.write(unescape('%3Cobject%3E%3Cnoscript%3E%3Cp%3E%3Cimg src="http://apps.sourceforge.net/piwik/matplotlib/piwik.php?idsite=1" alt="piwik"/%3E%3C/p%3E%3C/noscript%3E%3C/object%3E'));

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="_static/favicon.ico">

<img style="float: right; margin-bottom: -40px; top: 0; right: 0; border: 0;" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/github/ribbons/forkme_right_orange_ff7600.png" usemap="#ribbonmap"/>

<map name="ribbonmap">

<area shape="poly" coords="15,0,148,-1,148,135" href="https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib" title="Fork me on GitHub" />

<div style="background-color: white; text-align: left; padding: 10px 10px 15px 15px">

<a href="#"><img src="_static/logo2.png" border="0" alt="matplotlib"/></a>

<div class="related">

<h3>Navigation</h3>

<ul>

<li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px">

<a href="genindex.html" title="General Index"

accesskey="I">index</a></li>

<li class="right" >

<a href="py-modindex.html" title="Python Module Index"

>modules</a> |</li>

<li><a href="#">home</a>|&nbsp;</li>

<li><a href="search.html">search</a>|&nbsp;</li>

<li><a href="examples/index.html">examples</a>|&nbsp;</li>

<li><a href="gallery.html">gallery</a>|&nbsp;</li>

<li><a href="contents.html">docs</a> &raquo;</li>

</ul>

</div>

<div class="sphinxsidebar">

<div class="sphinxsidebarwrapper">

<div id="searchbox" style="display: none">

<h3>Quick search</h3>

<form class="search" action="search.html" method="get">

<input type="text" name="q" />

<input type="submit" value="Go" />

<input type="hidden" name="check_keywords" value="yes" />

<input type="hidden" name="area" value="default" />

</form>

<p class="searchtip" style="font-size: 90%">

Enter search terms or a module, class or function name.

</p>

<script type="text/javascript">$('#searchbox').show(0);</script>

</div>

</div>

<div class="document">

<div class="documentwrapper">

<div class="bodywrapper">

<div class="body">

<script>

function getSnippet(id, url) {

var req = false;

// For Safari, Firefox, and other non-MS browsers

if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {

try {

req = new XMLHttpRequest();

} catch (e) {

req = false;

}

} else if (window.ActiveXObject) {

// For Internet Explorer on Windows

try {

req = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");

} catch (e) {

try {

req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");

} catch (e) {

req = false;

}

}

}

var element = document.getElementById(id);

if (req) {

// Synchronous request, wait till we have it all

req.open('GET', url, false);

req.send(null);

element.innerHTML = req.responseText;

}

<h1>John Hunter (1968-2012)</h1>

<table bgcolor="#ddddff">

<tr>

<td>

<img src="_static/John-hunter-crop-2.jpg"/>

</td>

<td>

<p>

On August 28 2012, John D. Hunter, the creator of matplotlib, died

from complications arising from cancer treatment, after a brief but

intense battle with this terrible illness. John is survived by his

wife Miriam, his three daughters Rahel, Ava and Clara, his sisters

Layne and Mary, and his mother Sarah.</p>

<p>

If you have benefited from John's many contributions, please say

thanks in the way that would matter most to him. Please consider

making a donation to

the <a href="http://numfocus.org/johnhunter/">John Hunter Memorial

Fund</a>.</p>

</td>

<h1>Introduction</h1>

<p>matplotlib is a python 2D plotting library which produces

publication quality figures in a variety of hardcopy formats and

interactive environments across platforms. matplotlib can be used

in python scripts, the python and <a

href="http://ipython.org">ipython</a> shell (ala

MATLAB^{&reg;<a name="matlab" href="#ftn.matlab">*</a>}

or

Mathematica<sup>&reg;<a name="mathematica"

href="#ftn.mathematica">&#8224;</a></sup>),

web application servers, and six graphical user

interface toolkits.</p>

<p align="center"><a href="users/screenshots.html"><img align="middle"

src="_static/logo_sidebar_horiz.png" border="0"

alt="screenshots"/></a></p>

<p>matplotlib tries to make easy things easy and hard things possible.

You can generate plots, histograms, power spectra, bar charts,

errorcharts, scatterplots, etc, with just a few lines of code.

For a sampling, see the <a href="users/screenshots.html">screenshots</a>, <a href="gallery.html">thumbnail</a> gallery, and

<a href="examples/index.html">examples</a> directory</p>

<p>For example, using <tt>"ipython --pylab"</tt> to provide an interactive

environment, to generate 10,000 gaussian random numbers and plot a

histogram with 100 bins, you simply need to

type</p>

<pre>

x = randn(10000)

hist(x, 100)</pre>

<p>For the power user, you have full control of line styles, font

properties, axes properties, etc, via an object oriented interface

or via a set of functions familiar to MATLAB users.</p>

<h1>Download</h1>

Matplotlib is available for

<a href="https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/downloads">download</a>.

<h1>Documentation</h1>

This is the documentation for matplotlib version 1.2.0.

<p id="other_versions"></p>

<script>

getSnippet('other_versions', '/versions.html');

</script>

<p>Trying to learn how to do a particular kind of plot? Check out

the <a href="gallery.html">gallery</a>, <a href="examples/index.html">examples</a>,

or the <a href="api/pyplot_summary.html">list of plotting

commands</a>.</p>

<h4>Other learning resources</h4>

<ul>

<li>Sandro Tosi has a new book

<a href="http://www.packtpub.com/matplotlib-python-development/book?utm_source=matplotlib.sourceforge.net&utm_medium=link&utm_content=pod&utm_campaign=mdb_002124">Matplotlib

for python developers</a> also

at <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Matplotlib-Python-Developers-Sandro-Tosi/dp/1847197906">amazon</a>.</li>

<li>Nicolas Rougier has

a <a href="http://www.loria.fr/~rougier/teaching/matplotlib/">beginner

tutorial.</a></li>

<li>Eric Jones gave

an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fp1zn5ao2M&feature=plcp">introductory

tutorial on Numpy and matplotlib</a> at SciPy 2012.</li>

</ul>

<h4>Need help?</h4>

<p>Check the <a href="faq/index.html">faq</a>,

the <a href="api/index.html">api</a> docs,

<a href="http://matplotlib.1069221.n5.nabble.com/matplotlib-users-f3.html">mailing

list archives</a>, and join the matplotlib

mailing <a href="http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=80706">lists</a>.

Check out the matplotlib questions

on <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/matplotlib">stackoverflow</a>.

The <a href="search.html">search</a> tool searches all of

the documentation, including full text search of over 350 complete

examples which exercise almost every corner of matplotlib.</p>

<p>You can file bugs, patches and feature requests on the

github

<a href="https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues?sort=created&direction=desc&state=open">tracker</a>,

but it is a good idea to ping us on the mailing list too.</p>

<p>To keep up to date with what's going on in matplotlib, see

the <a href="users/whats_new.html">what's new

page</a>, the more detailed <a href="_static/CHANGELOG">changelog</a> or browse

the <a href="https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib">source

code</a>. Anything that could require changes to your existing code

is logged in the <a href="api/api_changes.html">api

changes</a> file.</p>

<h1>Toolkits</h1>

<p>There are several matplotlib add-on <a href="mpl_toolkits/index.html">toolkits</a>, including the projection

and mapping toolkit

<a href="http://matplotlib.github.com/basemap">basemap</a>, 3d plotting with <a href="mpl_toolkits/mplot3d/index.html">mplot3d</a>, axes and axis helpers in <a href="mpl_toolkits/axes_grid/index.html">axes_grid</a> and more.

</p>

<h1>Open source</h1>

<p>Please

consider <a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/project_donations.php?group_id=80706">donating</a>

to support matplotlib development or to

the <a href="http://numfocus.org/johnhunter/">John Hunter Memorial

Fund</a>.</p>

<p>The matplotlib <a href="users/license.html">license</a>

is based on the Python Software Foundation

<a href="http://www.python.org/psf/license">(PSF)</a> license.</p>

<p>There is an active developer community and a long list of people

who have made significant <a href="users/credits.html">contributions</a>.</p>

<div class="footnote"><p>

^{<a name="ftn.matlab" href="#matlab">*</a>}

MATLAB is a registered trademark of The MathWorks, Inc.

^{<a name="ftn.mathematica" href="#mathematica">&#8224;</a>}

Mathematica is a registered trademark of Wolfram Research, Inc.

</div>

</div>

</div>

<div class="clearer"></div>

</div>

<div class="related">

<h3>Navigation</h3>

<ul>

<li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px">

<a href="genindex.html" title="General Index"

>index</a></li>

<li class="right" >

<a href="py-modindex.html" title="Python Module Index"

>modules</a> |</li>

<li><a href="#">home</a>|&nbsp;</li>

<li><a href="search.html">search</a>|&nbsp;</li>

<li><a href="examples/index.html">examples</a>|&nbsp;</li>

<li><a href="gallery.html">gallery</a>|&nbsp;</li>

<li><a href="contents.html">docs</a> &raquo;</li>

</ul>

</div>

<div class="footer">

&copy; Copyright 2012 John Hunter, Darren Dale, Eric Firing, Michael Droettboom and the matplotlib development team.

Last updated on Nov 28, 2012.

Created using <a href="http://sphinx.pocoo.org/">Sphinx</a> 1.1.3.

</div>

</body>